The present invention relates to gas burners and more particularly to an improved integral spark ignition gas burner assembly.
Spark ignition is increasingly used because it avoids the energy consumption and heat caused by a standing igniter pilot flame that was often used in past to ignite gas burners such as gas range top burners.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,346 discloses a gas burner with a pair of electrodes for spark ignition inside the burner with a protective cap mounted on the burner body and orifices and grooves provided in an upper burner head part providing secondary air to permit ignition inside the burner. Disadvantages of this type of arrangement are the complexity of the assembly and unrelialibity in achieving ignition that may result from either low gas flow conditions or contamination within the secondary air grooves or orifices.
France Pat. No. 77 32910 discloses an electronic ignition gas burner with an electrode positioned directly within the primary air-gas fuel flow through a main burner port. With this type of ignition, reliable and repeatable operations may not be achieved due to the electrode position.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,626,196 discloses a spark ignited gas burner assembly including a burner body with an array of main burner ports, an electrically conductive burner top member and a spacer assembly to separate and electrically insulate the burner body and top member. An ignition gas pathway is defined between the burner body and the top member. A spark ignition circuit includes a spark gap in series circuit relationship between the burner body and the top member to provide ignition sparks in the ignition gas pathway. While this arrangement provides advantages over various known spark ignited burner assemblies, it is desirable to provide a burner assembly that enables repeatable and reliable ignition operations without using a separate top member electrically isolated from the burner body, that reduces the likelihood of electrical shock to the user, that is simple and inexpensive to make and to assemble, that includes a burner cap assembly which can be readily removed for cleaning, and that facilitates a more easily cleaned range configuration. Further it is desirable to provide such a burner assembly including a stationary base assembly to provide a simple and compact structure and with a gas range top surface configuration that provides optimum heat transfer and combustion operations.